Power Supply, Optical Drive, And Video Card
Power Supply: Corsair 650TX
Corsair’s TX650 is garnering a strong reputation for efficiency and the ability to deliver more power under load, and we’re going to put that reputation to the test with the Core i7 CPU and 4850 X2 video card when we overclock.
Read Customer Reviews of Corsair's 650TX
Features of this PSU include 52 amps on a single, powerful 12 V rail, an honest 80 PLUS certified efficiency rating, and an active PFC. For $100, this is a good, reliable power supply for this month’s enthusiast PC.
Optical Drive: LG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA Model GH20NS15
This month we’re trying LG’s OEM SATA optical drive. For about $23, the GH20NS15 has a decent 20x DVD reading speed that we appreciate in a budget OEM drive.
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2
With the knowledge that we were going up against last month’s Radeon HD 4870 X2, we needed to find something cheaper that would keep us in the same gaming league as AMD’s flagship card. We came upon the perfect substitute with Sapphire’s Radeon HD 4850 X2.
The specifications of AMD’s X2 cards are functionally identical, with two RV770 GPUs and 2 GB of video memory. The 4850 X2’s core and memory clock speeds are lower of course, but we’re looking at this from the perspective that the 4850 X2 should overclock higher. And the $200 we saved by choosing the 4850 X2 instead of its more expensive sibling went a long way in making the cost of the two systems comparable.
On a side note, the Sapphire card included some nifty bonus software with the card such as a full version of 3DMark Vantage, and PowerDVD 7.
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man are we getting screwed in the UK?! i put this price list together at scan.co.uk and got to £1017,21 excluding delivery!
1 017.21 British pounds = 1 470.07189 U.S. dollars
mmm and in Ireland it adds up to 1101.16 Euros, thats 1554.76 U.S dollars on xe.com. Why is there a .co.uk version of this site when they are obviously exclusively U.S only? What relevance has any of this got to do with the UK? Why is Toms continually ignoring this discrepancy ?
be cool if you did a test using the q9550, very stable processor that can easily do 3.6ghz with air and more!
Finally! An article to help disprove the mythical £1000/€1100/$1200 Core i7 wonder build. Its not just wattage that the i7 eats for breakfast; you need to throw money hand-over-fist at i7 to realize its benefits. The i7-965 is Skulltrail all over again, but even the i7-920 seems more oriented toward protein-folding "trust-fund enthusiasts" than us mainstream gamers.
Its not that i7 is a bad platform, just that it was, is, and will be, an enterprise-oriented platform that only hardened enthisiasts can get the most out of; us mortals should stick with Core2 for a few more months and wait and see how the upcoming mainstream platforms (AMDs AM3 and Intel's LGA1120) shape up, rather than blow €1500-odd on a server platform then go "D'oh!" when we realise it really needed twice as much cash spent on it to make a significant return on investment.
And while I can't explain why the HD4850X2 refused to play ball at stock, its clear that you wouldn't have been able to get the CPU to 3.7GHz stable without the GPU underclock; check out the power consumption. Even the Corsair isn't really up to this, you need a 750W+ PSU if you're thinking about OCing an i7 build with gaming in mind.
The gaming benchmark was a no-brainer, but the i7 does seem to give both SLi and CF (with 2 or more cards, not on a single card)a boost. For the next SBM, i would like to see the i7 920 against the C2Q9550, tested with both single and dual graphiccard setup.
lol, i would like to see fps on GTA4, coz i wonder if even these great systems can play that really badly coded game.
....And while I can't explain why the HD4850X2 refused to play ball at stock, its clear that you wouldn't have been able to get the CPU to 3.7GHz stable without the GPU underclock; check out the power consumption. Even the Corsair isn't really up to this, you need a 750W+ PSU if you're thinking about OCing an i7 build with gaming in mind.
Yeh like +1.
Why are THG advocating a total overloading of a PSU like this... A 650Watt @ 591Watt OC load is crazy. A bet your power figures don't include instantaneous power consumption spikes either...
This article is really rank amateur IMHO. You guys should have stuck to C2D for this build - so that you could spend more money on your powersupply...
Bob
I think these articles are good myself there just doing what we normal pc buying mortals do give ourself a budget and buy a pc in that budget and we mere mortals almost never quiet have enough money to match our ideas and you sometimes make a mistake, like buy a wrong size power supply and a all new flashy cpu. For a extra 20quid i would have got the Q9550 and the 750watt power supply. If i was daft enough to buy now knowing that loads of new stuff coming out in a few months lol.
One thing I don't agree with though is buying everything from one place looking around different stores can save you loads. My last pc saved me 100quid I got my stuff from 3 stores which included 3 different delivery charges and I still saved a hundred and with the extra cash got a better graphics card and power supply just because I shoped around.
But there obviously getting paid advertising by that newegg company.
Exactly , if you had up the Hard Drive , DvD drive , motherboard chipset and power spikes to the 591w OC , is not very recomendable at all.
Plus , dont be surprise if take this configuration to a 2 night LAN party and systems shuts down several times during the even.
Botom line , the I7 should be scrapped from the NEXT SBM and replace with the q9550. But pleace do a comparasion between them , first.